up "higher." They have been committed to wiser and more tender keeping. "Their angels" have got them; and in the immediate vicinity of the throne, they are undergoing a training, which is absolutely free from all those elements of imperfection, which might have resulted in moral deviation, defilement, and death, had they remained on the earth. "It is well."

REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN, DUNDEE.

"The promise is unto you and to your children.”ACTS ii. 39.

WE argue the salvation of infants, First, From the spirit of the Book. Secondly, From the revealed character of God. Thirdly, - From the glorious sufficiency of the death of Christ. Fourthly, -From the interest Scripture takes in children. Fifthly, - From some remarkable individual promises. And in fine, - From the example and language of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, first, From the spirit of the Bible. What is that spirit? Is it not a gentle, a peaceful, a kind, almost an infantine spirit? The writers of Scripture were simple as children, yet wise as divine inspiration

could make them. And this kindly simplicity they have transferred to their writings. Their wrath, when awakened, burns against obstinate transgressors; not against the infant of days, but against the sinner a hundred years old. And if you would see this spirit in its perfection, read the 12th of Romans, or the 13th of Ist Corinthians—the epistles of John, or the pleadings of the ancient prophets those eloquent, tender, broken-hearted pleadings with sinners and ask yourselves, could that spirit have been inspired by a God who would place eternal obstructions between infants and salvation?

We argue it again from the character of God. You need not be told what that is. It is that of a Merciful Being-of a Fatherof one whose name is Love—in such a sense, that even His wrath is love- that even His

justice is love-that all His perfections crowd in and form that grand central Love which is His essence and all. And when His anger is awakened, against whom does it smoke? Not against children, but against transgressors adult in age, obstinate in rebellion, unwearied in wickedness, who have rejected His terms of salvation, and sinned against great light and many privileges. How irresistibly arises the question, Is it possible that a God who wishes

all to be saved can refuse infants admission into His kingdom?-that He who has no pleasure in the blood of bulls and goats, has pleasure in the perdition of lamblike infants? none in the death of him that dieth -going down by his own voluntary act into the pit-and yet hath in that of those who have never been offered and never refused salvation? Perish for ever such hard and blasphemous conceptions of God!

But, again, I argue it from the glorious. sufficiency of the Death and Atonement of Christ. Sufficient for all, as all now grant that atonement to be, it must be sufficient for infants. It follows, therefore, that infants may be saved that there is sufficient groundwork laid in Christ for their acceptance. Christ, it is admitted, has died for some infants; but why not for all? and if for all, since none can by unbelief put themselves beyond the pale of salvation, -why should not all be saved? Supposing a taint of sin somehow connected with the child, has not Christ died to take that taint away? Supposing the dying infant destitute of what is called "original righteousness," has not Christ, by His obedience, wrought out, and brought in a robe so ample as to be able to supply its every deficiency, and to clothe all its nakedness?

But, again, think of the interest the Book of God takes in children. No term occurs more frequently than children. It sparkles like a sunbeam in every page. No promise is uttered but it is immediately extended to children. "How shall I put thee among the children?" is God's great point of inquiry. "Child of God" is His highest title of honor. The Bible may be called "The Child's own Book." It contains, more than any book in the world, matter peculiarly adapted for young minds and young hearts; and its juvenile heroes, Samuel, Abijah, Timothy, and the rest, are among the most interesting of all its characters. How strange all this! did God look upon all infants as possessing no beauty to be desired, and no capacities of moral excellence?

Remember, again, some special promises made to infants in the Word of God. Children, says David, are God's heritage, — His own peculiar and chosen possession. The promise is unto you and to your children." To your children more fully than to you. It is to you if you accept it; it is to your children, without any exception or reservation whatever. And how often are we told in scripture to imitate children. "In malice be ye children,”—implying that that foul plant of hell, which is

indeed the essence of the devil as love is the essence of God, is not to be found in their breasts. And ye, therefore, "As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."

But in fine, all this comes to a bright and glowing point, when we consider the example and the language of Christ Jesus. I cannot resist the idea that our Lord himself had much of the child in His appearance and manner. He was, verily, the "holy child Jesus." He had certainly much of it in His utterances. His language in the Sermon on the Mount resembles that of one who was at once a God and a child, so infinite is the simplicity, and so immense the depth. And why was Christ born a child? Why did He not appear like the first Adam, a full-grown man at once? Might it not be to show that such was His interest in children that He became an infant in their stead, consecrating thus the cradle, and filling the nursery with a divine radiance? You remember, too, how He took a little child and set him in the midst of His disciples, and said, "Except ye be converted, and become as this little child, ye cannot inherit the kingdom of God." And you remember the still more beautiful and significant words, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid